Beyond the Headlines

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Setting the standard

Every four years, the American people are given the opportunity to watch the main presidential candidates engage in a debate on the most salient issues of the time. The debates, broadcast live on radio and television, draw millions of viewers and often contribute to the outcome of the election. It is a unique chance to see the candidates side by side and to directly compare the plans, speaking skills, and argumentative abilities of prospective leaders. This month’s Beyond the Headlines will take a look at the origins of today’s election debates, in the 1858 debates between lawyer Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen Douglas during the contest for an Illinois senate seat.

The debates

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated seven times in locations throughout Illinois, debating U.S. policies concerning slavery – a subject of vital importance to the people – as well as several minor issues. “Never, since the days of Jefferson, has a political contest waged so warm, as that now going on between Douglas and the Democratic Party of Illinois, on the one hand, and the Federal Officers, Lincoln and Republicans, on the other,” reported The Daily Wisconsin Patriot on September 14, 1858.

Each debate began with a one-hour speech by one of the men and then followed with at one-and-a-half-hour speech by the other. It concluded with at one-half-hour close by the first speaker. This format gave each man ample time to speak, and as a result the debates are remembered in part for the eloquence on the parts of each man.

The Olney Times from October 22, 1858, discusses Douglas’s performance in the October 7th debate:

“He [Douglas] then repeated his charge that the Republican party was a sectional party, which does not dare to carry its principles into the slave States, and accused Lincoln of avowing sentiments in the northern part of the State that he was afraid to advocate in the southern part of the State. He attempted to prove this by citing a passage in Lincoln’s speech at Chicago, in which he quoted the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal,’ and comparing it with a passage from his Charleston speech, that he did not believe in the political and social equality of the negro with the white man.”

And Lincoln:

“First as to the assertion of Mr. Douglas that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence and that Jefferson and the signers themselves being themselves slave-holders, did not intend to include the black race in that Declaration; Mr. Lincoln challenged him to show that any man since the Government was organized, had pretended before that the negro was no included in the Declaration.—Nobody had ever said so until the necessities of the Democratic party had to invent that idea.”

Polemics

It is interesting to note that the newspapers of the day were heavily politicized, and Republican and Democrat newspapers would paint their candidates in the best light, often editing their candidate’s speeches while leaving typos in the opponents. Below are two examples, one from a Republican paper, and one from a Democratic paper:

The Alton Weekly Courier, which had begun as a Democratic paper but which changed to a Republican paper in 1856, titled an article regarding the September 18 Charleston debate “The Charleston Debate: The Great Triumphant Event Of The Campaign. Douglas Completely Demolished,” continuing in the article, “Of the debate, we can only say it was a brilliant triumph for Lincoln, the champion of freedom’s host in Illinois. […] We will not extend our comments at this time further than to add that Lincoln in the debate at Charleston, as well as in all his debates and speeches—brought forward new arguments and new logic, while Douglas—as he always does—simply rehashed and reiterated the ‘same old speech.’”

The Daily Wisconsin Patriot, by comparison, titled their article regarding the August 27 Freeport debate “Douglas & Lincoln At Freeport: A Front Seat View of the Great Intellectual Hercules, Douglas, by the side of Little Titmouse Lincoln!!,” and continued, “That contest is not merely a personal one, to determine whether Stephen A. Douglas or Abram [sic] Lincoln shall represent Illinois in the Senate for the next six years, but it is a contest for eternal principles—sound Democratic Principles, on the part of Douglas, as essential to the welfare of this Nation, as the liberty to reap what we sow, and to eat what we reap—and on the other hand, if any one can tell what Lincoln, or the Republicans are for or against, from reading Lincoln’s speech, they will be better at guessing than we are.”

Results

Although Douglas won the election, the debates brought Lincoln to the attention of a national audience. Lincoln edited the texts of the debates for spelling and grammar and published them. While the debates did not result in victory for Lincoln in 1858, people remembered (and read) his speeches, and when he again faced off against Stephen Douglas as Republican candidate for President of the United States in 1960, he triumphed.

The general election debates of today are much different than they were in 1858, but the spirit of the debates lives on. Each presidential candidate has a chance to set his position and respond to the other’s position, though in much shorter bits. Several debates are thought to have been deciding factors in the election, including the first modern debate, the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Still, no modern presidential debate has matched the depth and eloquence of the epic face-offs between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.